Other countries throughout the world don't have the sort of
skills gap the United States does. "It's because they have developed an integrated
system to forecast the skills they need down to the man hour
level, the competency level they need," Arkless said, "and
they've gone back to the education system and they have prepared
young people to want to go into jobs that are going to be needed
in the future."

Arkless doesn't have much
patience for excuses. "People say 'David, it's impossible in a
country like America to forecast the skills we need in detail,'
sorry, no it isn't. If you can do it in six months for a 26
million person entity called Shanghai you can do it in
America."

Students don't know what those 600,000 jobs are, let alone what
training they need. Companies know what they need, there are
schools available to train these workers, and there are
government programs to help certify or pay for the education. But
these groups don't talk to each other or have a consistent way to
cooperate, despite the fact that every stakeholder, and the
country as a whole, would benefit.

As an example of a place that's
taken aggressive and intelligent steps, Arkless gave the example
of Tianjin, China.

"The Chinese economy is forecast to grow at 6 percent this year.
The city of Tianjin, which is huge, its economy is growing at
17.9 percent. That's huge compared to the Chinese benchmark,"
Arkless said. "They went out very smartly and asked every foreign
company investing in Tianjin, 'what would cause you to invest
more? What would bring you here?' And the answer from every one
of the 2000 companies they surveyed was the right skills at the
right cost."

With The Manpower Group,
Tianjin evaluated every young person from ages 16-18.
Entrepreneurial and creative types were encouraged to start their
own business or join a small or medium business. The rest were
evaluated for their vocational leanings, and given a compelling
incentive to pursue it.

Arkless paraphrased the
government's pitch: "OK guys, you were thinking of going to
Beijing University to study physics, however if you're willing to
stay and go to Tianjin Vocational University to study value added
logistics, we will pay for your training costs and education, we
will give you free accommodation for four years and guarantee you
a job at a certain wage level. Are you interested?"

Unsurprisingly, many were. The
program's helped Tianjin grow its small and medium businesses by
300 percent over the last 2 years.

Obviously that's not a program
the US can perfectly replicate. But the country needs something
of similar ambition, or it will be beat by Tianjin and places
like it. The country needs what moderator Frederick Kempe called
a "Sputnik moment," referring to the moment when the US was
beaten to space by the Soviet Union, and responded with the
Apollo program.

The motivation is clear.
According to Arkless, filling those 600,000 empty jobs could
provide a 2.2 percent boost to GDP. America is the country that
went to the moon. It should be able to put similar effort towards
getting kids in contact with and on the path towards joining the
companies that need them.